


Some days in Eden

by HicMulier, roseren



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel/Demon Relationship, Comfort, Domestic Fluff, Gardens & Gardening, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Mentioned Gabriel (Good Omens), Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Snakes, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), True Love, ineffable boyfriends, keurig
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-05-20 13:20:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19377535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HicMulier/pseuds/HicMulier, https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseren/pseuds/roseren
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley navigate the days after the Apocawasn't. Even with it all said and done there are still lingering uncertainties and hurts that have made it difficult to settle quite in comfortably. But somewhere in their Eden they'll find a way to live with it.





	1. Something Tragic About You

**Author's Note:**

> This is the beginning of a longer more collaborative work, but I was struck with the notion of how both character's mental state would be after the things they experienced in the not quite aftermath of what didn't actually happen. Of course everything wasn't immediately okay, of course there will be some doubt over whether this is all too good to be true. 
> 
> Enjoy!

    There are some days he wakes up and wonders if the world really did end. If maybe the battle commenced and now he’s just caught in this endless dream. Something in his conscious possibly shielding him from the truth of it all. Some days he wonders if he and Crowley embraced there on the field between heaven and hell and maybe one last miracle let them stay locked together there in the moment before the end, their minds tangled together in an illusion of what could have been. 

    This is something Aziraphale thinks about when he rolls over every morning. Which day will it be that the battle reaches them? Are they truly here or is this all a fabrication? Regardless of what it is they’ve developed a routine even though his nerves settle there in the pit of his stomach when he wakes up, slowly dissipating as the day commences. 

    He rises first. He’s never been the type to sleep, but now in this little Eden they’ve made for themselves he finds it harder not to when he tangles himself up with the demon after a long day. He finds he just drifts away, feeling the warmth of the other pressed against his chest. His steady breathing seems to calm the tempest that still roils inside of him sometimes. Most times in the night they separate. Crowley likes to bunch all the blankets up against him, cradle them between his legs and encircles his arms around them. As if it were really his angel and not a feather stuffed cotton duvet. 

    Aziraphale rises and finds he quite enjoys a hot bath or shower in the morning, depending on how leisurely one feels due to the time of rising, or what perhaps happened the night before. 

    There are days when Crowley hears him and joins. Still groggy he’ll lean up against Aziraphale in the warm spray of the shower, or settle in front of him in the bath. Those days they both come out smelling like whatever expensive botanical or french soap or wash one of them has purchased and they go through their own routines. Neither of them have a need to shave, being a 6,000 year old ethereal being has perks in that way. Aziraphale finds some strange comfort in doing things the human way, combing through his hair and doing it just so, brushing his teeth, adjusting his bow-tie. 

    If Crowley is still asleep for the morning routine he dresses alone and makes his way downstairs to fix tea for himself and a coffee for Crowley. The machine the other brought over from his former flat is complicated, but in a few days of fiddling with it Aziraphale had it down. It is on the mornings that he is alone he wonders if Crowley is still upstairs. He finds while the kettle heats and the coffee brews if he’s feeling especially unsettled, he will check once or twice to ensure the other is still where he left him. 

   That this is actually their life and not the illusion he fears it might be. 

    Things are simple and average in this new life, but that he believes, is what makes it extraordinary. They’ve never been able to have this how it is now. Individually they had their own routines but together they have developed a rhythm, a symbiosis. 

    Aziraphale will settle with his tea after bringing the steaming cup of coffee to rest on the nightstand on Crowley’s side of the bed.

    They even have sides of the bed. Aziraphale sleeps close to the window. He enjoys the way the sunlight casts over his side of the bed as he's getting up. Whereas Crowley prefers to take less of the light but savor all of the warmth that the bed absorbs once Aziraphale has gotten up for the morning. 

    The angel reads and sips his tea until his counterpart ambles in with his mug. More often than not Aziraphale moves to the couch so Crowley can stretch out and lean against him while he nurses his coffee. They don't actually talk much before a certain time. Both of them find they can manage quite well in the quiet. Crowley’s nose presses into the crook of his neck, the only sounds the occasional sip of tea or coffee and the turning of a page. It quiets some of the doubt certain days, others it heightens it. How could this sort of wonderful be real. Eventually Crowley will either decide he would like to shower himself for the day, or Aziraphale’s stomach grumbles that breakfast sounds particularly nice. 

    He finds the longer they settle into humanity together, the more Crowley surprises him with what he knows and what he chooses to share with Aziraphale. Gestures one would not expect from the demon, or well former demon isn’t it now? Suppose he is a former angel as well. They have been kept eerily alone… No calls from either home office, no sign of anything changing drastically other than the lack of assignments. Aziraphale avoids miracles nonetheless. If this new domestic life is truly something they’ve been privileged enough to be gifted, he doesn’t want to chance mucking it all up. 

    Nothing would ruin this more than a surprise drop in from Gabriel. So he keeps any little instances where a miracle could be necessary or helpful to a minimum, and even then it is always something minuscule. So he and Crowley cook the human way, or they go out to eat. He’s found the demon to actually be quite the good cook for a strangely specific set of dishes. It seems he can cook nothing simplistic very effectively, but give him a precise or difficult recipe to follow and the dish comes out brilliantly. Perhaps that is a little miracle of his own. 

    Some days they spend doing mundane things about the house. Aziraphale enjoys tending to Crowley’s plants and has even started a small herb and flower garden of his own. His basil is growing in lush and green in the balmy sea air and he finds his mind decides to slow its paces when he works out there. It reminds him of being the Dowling’s gardener. He reflects on the sort of peace that gave him to just be doing good works, being one with nature. Time seems to slow altogether until he feels arms around him, kissing at the earthy perspiration on the back of his neck urging him to come inside. Occasionally instead, a wily little serpent will weave his way through the garden, enjoying the sunlight while he works. Aziraphale muses playfully about the addition of an apple tree to their little garden. He receives what sounds like an amused hiss from under some leaves whereupon the black garden snake is napping. 

    Sometimes they picnic on the shore.  Crowley even bought Aziraphale his own pair of sunglasses to shield away the brightness that comes up off the water. It doesn’t bother him the same way, but they were a gift from Crowley so he wears them anyway. Other days when it rains or they do not feel up to the shore they go out for lunch, or they settle under their awning to watch the fat droplets spill over the parsley plant. When the lightning goes and the thunder booms, Aziraphale’s arm instinctively moves about the slighter man. These days it is as much of a shield for himself as it is for his counterpart. He wonders every time if the sky will split and the cannon fire thunder will bring them back to the battlefield that maybe never was. He does not share these fears with Crowley, but he can see the furrow of his brow. He knows something is wrong. He fears that something has come to disrupt their Eden. 

    It is the bad days when Aziraphale does not go outside at all. His appetite wanes and he curls further into himself, getting lost in whatever series he has decided to reread for the 100th or so time. It is those days that Crowley seems the most tentative. He tries to do what he can to soothe while also giving his angel space. On these days Aziraphale sleeps poorly or not at all, and Crowley cannot manage to as well. It feels like their home is haunted on those days, and in a way it is. It is haunted by something unseen but most certainly felt. The uncertainty of where they lie with either side is something that nags at Crowley as well, but it is further than uncertainty that leaves Aziraphale almost unreachable some days. 

   When they find each other again they don’t talk about it. It is always a new day, new things to occupy the mind, or their time. They equally and actively avoid letting it linger, but that does not mean it goes away. 

    They fix dinner or order in, indulge in far too much wine and then spend their evenings lounged together exploring all of the things they weren’t allowed to before. They take things they couldn’t, they laugh and in those early days after the new sort of fall they cry and it is okay. 

    Sometime in this Eden they have created for themselves they will have to face the unknown, but for now they taste the fruit… they indulge in each other. 

    They live, like they haven’t for the last 6,000 years and it is good. Some days…

 

    Most days…


	2. Something like that

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to this sprawling thing.
> 
> Neil Gaiman apparently once mentioned in a blog post that he and Terry Pratchett were talking about what Crowley and Aziraphale might be up to, and then mentioned something about them knocking around the South Downs together, which the fandom absolutely ran with. I intend to do the exact same thing. Because no one can resist two idiots in a seaside cottage.
> 
> Also, money troubles? Not on crowziraphale’s watch!
> 
> Oh Anathema, always ten steps ahead of the game.
> 
> Sidenote: I am definitely a serious writery writer who definitely knows what they’re doing.

The strangest thing for Crowley about life after the apoca _-let’s-not_ \- _not the best thing, or the worst thing, mind you, just the_ strangest _thing_ \- is that he has no idea where he stands with his employers.

Sure, the Angel as Crowley and Crowley as the Angel had scared the ever-loving shit out of their respective superiors as best they could given their predicaments, and the message had been clear enough: _leave us alone.  
_

It’s only… he _had_ expected it to work. To a point.

The great opposing sides, heaven and hell, with their legions of angels and demons and flaming weapons and scorching fire and brimstone and sulphur and whatever else a bored bastard could come up with if he were mean and drunk enough are, to put it lightly, formidable forces. Each with more than enough man- well, _being_ power to achieve their ends, and with massive chips on their ethereal and occult shoulders to boot. Letting anything go, especially outright defiance from two beings they had meant to make public examples of, has never exactly been their style.

And so, while Crowley had expected a bit of silence whilst both sides licked their wounds and reestablished their respective versions of morale, he hadn’t expected it all to go _this_ well.

 

* * *

Anathema and Newt sit across the white tablecloth, at a restaurant none of them should be able to afford to frequent. Anathema and Newt do _not_ frequent it, but were happy to come upon invitation, upon Aziraphale insisting, offering. _Tempting,_ Crowley had thought behind an amused smile.

“So,” says Newt, with the distinct air of making an assumption the angel and the demon have rather gotten used to in their time on earth, “where, um… what’s on the list next for the two of you?”

Anathema cuts her eyes over to her fiancee, holding a cup of dessert coffee between her slender hands, since the latter is speaking as if to an older couple with maybe two decades’ age difference, possibly married, instead of two impossibly old occult beings. Which, the more she thinks on it, the more the two interpretations may intersect rather than divide. A human like her, even one that is the spawn of centuries of sensitives, witches, still has no idea what friendship could look like over so many years.

The light and dark haired males across the table exchange a look so familiar, one with obvious tenderness and one trying to hide it, that Anathema decides Newt isn’t, in fact, talking out of his ass after all.

It was an idea, a _vibe_ , she had picked up the first time they all met- granted, at the time, there were bigger fish to fry than speculating on the two oddballs’ relationship.

Those big fried fish are the reason the four of them have met up so easily, she thinks, and why it feels so comfortable between them all, since no one else would believe the sort fish they had all fried together- a fish no one else even remembered, really, a giant squid or a loch ness monster of a sort, if the loch ness monster _is_ even a fish and not some sort of mammal and _jesus_ , this metaphor is getting away from her… or maybe it’s just all the expensive wine that _hasn’_ t managed to get away from her this evening.

“I do still have my bookshop,” Aziraphale says with a nod, his own dessert espresso in hand, “and Crowley has his flat, his plants. Perhaps there is no reason, yet, to abandon them.”

Crowley is quiet, studying the other two behind his darkened glasses, some unsaid _thing_ making it impossible for him to respond how he might truly like to, she would guess.

Aziraphale seems to catch the air of uncertainty which risks becoming awkward and smiles at them all in turn as he speaks. “However…” and his eyes shine with something akin to mischief and interest all at once, “I was entertaining the notion of a holiday, as it happens- wining and dining our way across America, as it were.”

“Pretty sure there’s a third part to that saying,” Anathema murmurs into her cup. The angel doesn’t seem to have heard, but Newt looks scandalized and catches her exposed ankle under the table with his shoe, and Crowley- Crowley _smirks._

 

* * *

_It’s downright concerning at this point,_ Crowley thinks to himself.

After the _everything_ \- after the anti-christening, the trials, that conversation on the bench and that unforgettable night, when something had begun to bloom between them _like a sprout repotted to let its roots go deeper and its leaves sprawl and flourish_ \- he had expected… something. Anything.

A letter. A cryptic note. A character on the telly becoming some nightmare cross between itself and someone he knows- Dagon, maybe, that’d be one way to spice up shark week - but… nothing.

It wasn’t likely nowadays that they’d be sending him any missives of recognition, awards for his “work”. It didn’t make sense for him to go on any missions of _demonning about_ and generally inconveniencing the human race, what with his recent declarations of sovereignty- his and Aziraphale’s _both_. And yet, their bank accounts had not budged save for where the two of them budged them, and their forms did not dissipate into sand and salt and firmament, and reality still bent at a blink or a snap or a forceful thought. There seemed to be a newfound freedom, somehow accompanied by all the perks that had come with a life in bondage, and it seemed too good to be true.

And so, Crowley had filled in the gaps himself, just as he always had, and took full advantage of the situation.

“Maybe there are certain things they _can’t_ take from us,” he had suggested, one afternoon in the South Downs, by the shore of Anathema and Newt’s cottage. It was a place he and Aziraphale had contemplated for some time, good for lying low for a few decades if need be, but in the end the cottage they had pursued seemed better for the faux programmer and the pregnant witch. “Have you figured out what’s occult biology and what’s company issue?”

“Ethereal,” Aziraphale had corrected him from his sprawl on the pink-and-green striped beach towel and Crowley, standing in the sand and looking over the sun reflecting on the surf, had rolled his eyes, which Aziraphale of course noticed, even hidden as the gesture was by the Valentino shades. “And not quite, I’m afraid. Though with the keeping track of miracles enough to berate one for flippancy, I would assume we are either tracked through them or given reign of them by authority.”

“So we’re _chipped_ \- got it, knew that one,” Crowley says, a chill running down his arms anyway despite the harsh sun. It’s going to toast his skin, and he’s going to do other traceable things to remedy that later, he’s sure.

“Ah, like pets. Somewhat,” Aziraphale offers, unhelpfully.

They’ve mostly treated this like the whole flaming sword thing- _No one followed up? Probably a good thing. Move on._

But both of them, this time, cover up the feelings of anxiety it gives them, instead of just the principality of the eastern gate alone cautiously turning his eyes skyward every now and again, fearing the carpet to be ripped from underneath him.

They put those feelings into a box and bury it deep beneath the sand, replacing them with exploration of the modern world, of the promise of this new life, and this thing slowly building between them.

“Something like that,” Crowley says, wrinkling his nose. It stings. _Definitely sunburned._

 

* * *

Crowley stepped into Orion, and Orion sloshed around his foot and drenched his shoe through to the sock.

“Steady, now” Aziraphale had said with a ruddy cheeked laugh, catching him about the chest with a surprisingly sturdy arm, though the angel himself stumbled upon said gesture.

“Maybe wet _ssstreetsss_ and _thisss_ amount of alcohol don’ _micksss_ ,” Crowley manages through his smile, holding onto the Angel round the shoulders now as the other slings the same warm arm around his waist.

The amounts of alcohol they had consumed were enough to kill a mortal, but what else was new?

“The streets are _always_ wet, my dear- this is _London_.”

It had helped them talk, and dance, and celebrate the not-end-of-the-world. It had made their leaning on one another feel even more natural, and had brought warmth back into Crowley’s perpetually chilly extremities- at least he _thinks_ that was the alcohol- and so what if it made navigating home a little more difficult?

Miraculously appearing anywhere was out. They’d wake up in Timbuktu at this rate.

“Dear boy, do you walk with any part of you besides your hips? You are throwing me off balance!”

Crowley had laughed and deigned not to answer. “Are you coming to mine?” he asked instead, extending his earlier invitation, his heart only pounding a little harder and faster than normal, he would swear.

 

* * *

Out of all the things that could’ve upset their little world, he doesn’t expect the recession- a thing that starts in the United States -of course- somewhere during the noughties and spreads like a plague, so dependent is the world economy on America. Crowley and Aziraphale are unaffected, will always -?-  have enough under their belt to live comfortably.

Their half American friends and their child, however, put the cottage up for sale.

“It’s bullshit, but there are better places anyway,” Anathema tells them over tea in the bookshop. It’s closed, but it’s always technically closed, and never for close friends of A. Z. Fell. “You should’ve seen how I was living beforehand- before I came out to do the _descendant of Agnes Nutter_ thing. There was this modern house in the mountains…”

“So you’re really intending on going back to America?” Crowley asks, eyebrows a little screwed up. It’s not that he detests America so much, it’s just that…

“We would miss you terribly,” says Aziraphale, taking a drink of golden milk tea, and Crowley doesn’t know whether the angel- former angel? no, still got wings- means to finish the demon’s thought or not.

Anathema shakes her head, waving her hand slowly, as if dispelling a notion that never should have existed. “I’m not uprooting Newt and Sage _that_ much, I was just _saying_ \- a little seaside cottage is lovely but it can fetch quite a price, enough to make sure we don’t have to dig ourselves out of any holes any time soon, and I know for a fact there are places just as lovely and… less expensive.”

Something in Crowley’s spine relaxes, the way it did the last time he and Aziraphale checked in on Warlock and found him to be growing normally, no twisted wings, less nationalistic brainwashing than they had dared hope for.

They talk that night, in his place over dinner, about how they’re going to help- because no friends of theirs are going to be victims to the whims of bloody world economics.

“She won’t just take it,” Crowley says, failing to even mention Newton, and Aziraphale doesn’t seem to question it- Anathema is the head of the household, at least as far as financial decisions go. Both seem fairly balanced in their power in the relationship- _which is a good thing, go Pulsifer-Devices!_ \- but no one can deny that Anathema has a certain assertiveness that her husband most definitely lacks.

Both of them are loathe to mess with their friends’ perception in the vein of forwarding them a cushion of money that they would miraculously never question, and though they’re both relieved to know the threesome aren’t lighting out of the United Kingdom any time soon, they agree that something must be done.

It’s of their own free will, Aziraphale holding none of the bearing he used to while talking about the things he must do for humanity on the grounds of being right and holy, on the grounds of it being his job, his purpose. And Crowley holds only the dregs of hesitance about doing something that, in the end, would have been an act of altruism had he not had a vested interest in keeping _his_ people- and they are, now, his people- safe. Besides, he’s been doing it for centuries, lawyering for his personal interest, making it sound like he’s only following orders.

This is a choice, one that any wealthy humans might make, and they’re not using miracles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> So this chapter is a bit of a precursor to the first one, as will be the third chapter. I'm co-writing this with my girlfriend who is currently getting an AO3 account so I can add her as a co-creator. We both started writing our chapters around the same time and decided to just weave them in together however they worked. I wanted to give a general position for mine in the first chapter that established them at the cottage but also we wanted to show where the seeds of doubt were in both of them and how they settled in the South Downs, but mostly from Aziraphale's perspective. 
> 
> Ren's chapters, such as this one, will be from Crowley's perspective mainly.
> 
> Kind of like a series of one shots that will make up a cohesive story. 
> 
> Comments are appreciated. We are figuring the story out as we go along and are excited to write more. We hope you enjoy!


	3. Some Kind of Resolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale and Crowley speak over dinner of the possibility of packing up their lives in London to move to the South Downs. Crowley poses it as a way to get the expense of selling the cottage out of Anathema and Newt's hands, but perhaps there are other appeals to getting away from the routine of the last few years after the Apoca-wasn't. Aziraphale, after all, has not been quite himself.

For so long they had each had their own spaces and their own belongings. Of course it wasn’t as if they weren’t staying together every evening anyway, but it was getting quite complicated having to switch back and forth. Aziraphale was one of a mindset that he liked to have everything he needed and wanted in one space. A big proponent of comfort, he had become quite particular as the millennia wore on. He enjoyed knowing that the things that were important to him were close by. His books, trinkets that he had brought with him through the years, and now (though it had always been this way but you could not get him to admit to it), Crowley. In fact it made him quite nervous now that there had been pure radio silence from their respective home offices that Crowley perhaps showing up late for a date, or leaving for some unspecified place during the day meant that there would be a smattering of minutes where he would fully panic that something had happened to him.

 

This was of course not healthy for his mental state in the slightest, but there was little to be done in the way of rectifying that as the emotional toll had already been taken. It was not difficult for someone who knew Aziraphale as well as Crowley did to see that something was amiss most definitely. It was a glint in his eyes over dinner at the Ritz, or the rigidness of his shoulders as he just for a moment thought he recognized someone in a crowd of people. London was, in a way, far too familiar and that in itself was causing micro-moments of distress. It was after a conversation with Newt and Anathema about the possibility of them returning to America- or going somewhere else- once their cottage in the South Downs became far too expensive for them to upkeep with a child to be concerned for, that Crowley felt it necessary to pick Aziraphale’s brain. 

 

“Well unfortunately that is the way human economics seems to be designed. I’ve always wondered which one of us actually designed it. It benefits some but not the rest and it is different all over the place, so I’ve always- oh heavens…” the pasta sauce splattered. The angel, sort of, made a frustrated  _ tsk _ ing sound as he became aware that the vodka sauce he had been stirring had ‘spat’ and now there were a few very undignified splatters on the front of his sweater. He barely had to look up before Crowley ensured the spots no longer existed. An appreciative smile was shared, returned by the gentle, heatless cock of an eyebrow before he turned the sauce down and began stirring again. 

 

“Anathema isn’t someone who.... Newt, he’ll take just about anything you throw at him, but her...” He muttered, legs swinging a bit over the side of his granite countertops, a glass of nearly empty red wine in hand. “She’s always a step ahead of everyone. Works, though- she’s usually right. But here… you know what it looks like. It looks like  _ charity _ , is what it looks like, and it won’t go over well. Where was she before? Malibu?” Crowley paused after spitting that out, worrying the side of his lip for a split second before leaving it and carrying on with a new coolness. 

 

“If we pose it to her that  _ we _ want to relocate-” 

 

“Do we want to relocate?” Aziraphale interrupted, going to fetch plates from Crowley’s cabinet and returning with some fashionable square white ones. He started incorporating the sauce into the bucatini and began shredding parmesan with that charming little tool he was sure Crowley had never used. The sausages were transferred onto a cutting board and a knife was placed by it with a wordless hand gesture for the demon to come and cut slices. 

 

“Oh now  _ that’s _ just unnatural, angel.” Crowley grinned when he roused that little blush to paint Aziraphale’s cheeks, but he was not given commentary in return. He hopped down with an ungraceful grace and sauntered his way over to do what his angel had wordlessly asked of him. “Don’t you? If I’m honest, you don’t seem…” 

 

“What?” 

 

“...entirely present most days,” Crowley ventured, his grin giving up most of its boldness as the conversation shifted “ Like you’re here but you’re not... You called me the other morning in a tizzy because I stepped out to get something and you didn’t know where I’d gone. That’s not like you.” He didn't wear his sunglasses when alone with Aziraphale often, and now he seemed to remember that and took them off so as to look at him better. Aziraphale was not looking back at him, though. He was much too focused, it appeared, on grating cheese into the pasta. 

 

“I wonder if I should have bought basil… it would have been lovely to cut up on top-"

“Aziraphale.” Crowley knew very well when the angel was deflecting. He had known him far too long not to- so long that if he hadn't noticed by now it would have been quite sad and he would have been quite oblivious to obvious mannerisms, which he was  _ not. _ Six thousand years of tempting did not leave one  _ oblivious to obvious mannerisms. _

 

  “Don’t take that tone with me, like I’m a plant you’re about to scold. That warning tone is not becoming at all, dear boy.” 

 

“Aziraphale.” Softer this time at the angel’s bristling, more gentle and concerned. It wasn’t a rare tone for him anymore- it was something Aziraphale liked, but also wished he wouldn’t utilize in this instance. 

 

“I’m waiting…” He muttered and stopped artfully serving Bucatini a la Vodka to instead focus on folding the tea towels by the sink. 

 

“On what, may I ask?” Crowley’s brow is raised. There is a long moment of silence and folding and refolding towels before finally the angel sighs, a bit exasperated. 

 

“The other shoe to drop I suppose… It’s like that day on the beach when you were talking about how we’re essentially  _ chipped _ so they can track us and our miracles and I’ve just… been worried that perhaps none of this even exists. That maybe the reason it all feels so quiet and so good is that we aren’t…” Aziraphale dropped his voice a little- Crowley found himself glancing around at that, perhaps worried the walls suddenly had ears- “Is that we aren’t really here. It’s just some sort of illusion built to help us cope with the end. One last little joint miracle and one day it will all just shatter and we’ll be on the battlefield that wasn’t or maybe it actually is. I don’t know.” He sighed and sank into a kitchen chair. “I probably sound utterly mad.” 

 

Crowley set the knife down on the chopping board and went to lean against the table, watching Aziraphale for a moment. 

 

“How long have you been worried about this?” He asked calmly. 

 

“...Since it all happened. The day after our lunch at the Ritz when things started falling into place I was struck with the worry that maybe it wasn’t as it seemed, but as the days and years wore on it just kept growing...this fear that maybe this life we’ve built in all of its routine normalcy is just something elaborate that we’ve attempted in order to avoid a harsher reality.” Aziraphale hadn’t thought it could really all be that far fetched. He honestly didn't know what he would have been able to conjure when faced with the reality that he would either die, likely never see Crowley again, Crowley would die, or some horrible combination of multiples- or something else wicked entirely. 

 

So  _ yes, _ he worried when Crowley would leave unannounced. Even though it had been his own face staring back at him, Aziraphale still had not forgotten watching him dragged away by Angels…  or the feeling of being beaten down by demons. 

 

“Angel…” Crowley started.

“No, I  _ know _ how foolish it sounds you don’t have to tell me-”

 

“Angel.”

 

“-I mean it  _ really _ makes so little sense but so has everything else and-” 

 

“Angel…”

 

“-stranger things have happened and everything has been so perfect I just-” 

 

“ _ Aziraphale. _ ” Crowley’s voice cut him off mid-prattle and the angel’s eyes finally moved up to meet his and lock gaze. Crowley sighed softly and went to sit at the table with him. “It isn’t beyond possibility... but that doesn’t mean that it is reality. That  _ this  _ isn’t, rather,” He trailed off, sensing the words becoming salad on his tongue and waved a hand as if to tell them to sort themselves out. “...Yes. neither of us have heard from home office but that doesn’t mean we’re not actually here. I mean we’d have to be pretty creative to make this all up and besides-  _ bad things _ are still happening all the time. Traffic jams and heart attacks and those annoying little sticky strips that  _ claim _ to be resealable but actually make it difficult to keep the bags of coffee beans closed.  _ Plenty _ of annoyances and worse things happening around us, but we don’t pay as much attention, why?” 

 

Aziraphale didn’t respond right off he just sort of sat and looked up at him with a curious sort of furrowed brow. 

 

“Because we’re  _ happy _ . Content. I mean,  _ I _ am at least. Happiest I’ve been.” And Crowley was not looking at Aziraphale anymore, but seemingly inspecting his hands where they’ve fallen on the table. “Makes a difference actually being around each other without having to sneak around two sets of otherworldly beings or work on new ways to make the world better or more inconvenient.” He mused and cocked a brow in Aziraphale’s direction, finally looking up, as if searching for an answer, for reception. The angel seemed to think about it for a moment or two before sighing softly. 

 

“I suppose you’re right…those little sticky tabs really are infuriating.” Aziraphale practically felt the smile that Crowley gave him in response. Things weren’t perfect and he still had his worries, but he was happy. They both were happy. 

 

“I shouldn’t have taught you to be snarky, angel.” 

 

“You didn’t.” Aziraphale responded with enough cheek for Crowley to roll his eyes and laugh in turn. He would still keep an eye on Aziraphale, his own worries had not been assuaged either. It just seemed Crowley was better at hiding them. Or perhaps merely less adept at airing his vulnerability, in an unprecedented switch of abilities. “Will you pour us both another glass while I get the food to the table?” Aziraphale asked, starting to cart over the charming plates of pasta with sausage. Once they were settled at the table and the wine had been repoured, he took his own glass and gave it a sip-an Italian red from 1902. Delicious, rich, and certain to get him feeling light after a few glasses worth. “So- relocating to the South Downs. Do you think you’ll be alright to spend that much time near the shore? You burn surprisingly well for someone of your design.”

“So you  _ do  _ think it’s a good idea then?” Crowley countered and took a forkful of pasta. Aziraphale took his own bite once he set the wine glass back on the polished wood of the table. 

 

“Anathema and Newt need people willing to pay a higher budget price to take the cottage off of their hands. Something that would set them up well back here. Perhaps… I could let them take care of the bookshop.”

 

Crowley’s eyebrows nearly collided with his hairline.

 

“Pose it to them that we want to get away,” Aziraphale continued, “and that way I can only take the books I want to keep on hand and I can switch them out when needed. It would be far too much trouble to move all of my collection to the cottage anyway. The shore isn’t an ideal climate for bookkeeping in any case, salt weathers the pages and the dampness makes the bindings soft.” If he gave Anathema a reason to not only take their money but to put it away and upkeep the bookshop and the old flat that could be renovated to comfortably suit a growing family,  then he and Crowley would not have to worry about their friends comfort and they could have their very own fresh start. “And if we don’t like the cottage after awhile we can always sell it and come home.” He took another sip from his glass to punctuate the thought.

 

Crowley held his hands up, making a little questioning noise that could have been words, but was not. Words did eventually come, however.

 

“You spent…  _ decades _ , owning that bookshop, fighting the mob off it, stirring the hairs on the back of my neck if I so much as  _ touched _ one of your collection, employing all manner of magic tricks and passive aggression and -  _ don’t you look at me like that, it’s passive aggressive -  _ and  _ smells _ in order to keep your books unsold, and now you want to let someone else steward your treasures?”

 

Aziraphale quietly sips his wine and refuses to meet the gaze of his counterpart. “I never used smells thank you very much-”

 

“-y _ es you bloody well di-” _

“- and that is entirely beside the point. I simply think it is a good investment for all of us. If we are going to be away and they are having such troubles with money, I don’t intend to have them spending more on a flat while my books are also laying dormant and getting dusty all alone there in the shop. It’s monstrous to just let them go that way, my dear.” 

 

Crowley seemed to fight with incredulity for a moment before responding. “Oh. Okay.  _ Yeah _ . A ruddy shame. And how will you pose this to her? _ ’Come own my bookshop. We don’t sell anything and are only open during certain hours when the moon aligns with venus and all the little faeries come out to play and then  _ only _ if it’s not Tuesday? _ ’”

 

“Well now you’re just being ridiculous on purpose. I will inform her that it is more of a collection than a stock… Have her simply dust the books and let the customers peruse but for her to think of it like a museum rather than a business… or a library that you aren’t allowed to check out the books. I think it will go over fine once she understands.” Aziraphale was quite certain that it would be alright if he could get Anathema to understand that under no circumstance was she to sell  _ anything.  _

 

Crowley still looked at the other for a moment, amusement coming over his features. “ _ Well _ . This little conversation has been shocking and enlightening on a few levels. Limestone cliffs are beautiful, but until this day, I had no  _ idea _ just how fond you were.”

 

Aziraphale did not respond, he took a momentary bite of his pasta as his way of letting Crowley know the conversation had come to a conclusion. The other didn’t need to know that the Limestone cliffs were absolutely far and away from where his mind had gone when the prospect of getting away had been brought up. 

 

No, there were other things that were far more captivating than some rocks that shifted about when the rain was too heavy. 

 

With the silence, Crowley leaned back, regarding the other as if to add something, and then regarding the pasta. Regarding the pasta with his fork and spoon. “Alright, then. We’ll have them for dinner tomorrow to suggest it. Set the mood with-”

 

“Curry. Anathema loves my Chana Masala recipe, and Newt will eat anything you can wrap in naan bread.” Aziraphale grinned, satisfied for the moment with the solution they had come up with. A hand snaked its way across the table to grasp hold of his own, he looked up to find Crowley not even meeting his gaze. His pasta was far more interesting it seemed, but Aziraphale entwined their fingers in return. A fresh start in the South Downs, yes… perhaps that would make all the difference. 

 

“Angel?” Crowley asked, now that Aziraphale’s hand was in his. 

 

“Yes, my dear boy?” He responded, looking up from his dish to regard him fully. 

 

“You’re going to go back on the thing about the books,” Crowley answered. And now that neither of them were looking away, or regarding the pasta too ardently, it was plain to see he was still smiling.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the response to the last chapter. 
> 
> We have some ideas on how we want this whole thing to go but are struck with new ones every day. For reference chapter 1 is more of an overarching setting of the mood. It is where we want the story to go, somewhere they can be happy. The chapters after are what leads up to that point. Past ambiguous feelings and having them settling into what it might be like to let themselves be happy. The past few years after halting the Apocalypse have still been some pussy-footing around feelings but settling into this domestic relationship without really saying anything of what it means or what it is fully. The slow burn has already happened, but we are catching the last few bits of it as they leave London and settle down by the shore. 
> 
> Keep leaving your kudos and comments and please give us any feedback you might have. Thank you for reading!


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